AI Companies Allegedly Bent Their Own Rules To Train Their Systems, Copyright Holders Seek Licensing Deals
AI has become a staple in many companies, ranging from chatbots to malware detection. However, the way AI companies have been collecting data to train their systems has raised eyebrows. Copyright lawsuits have been filed by authors, publishers, and others who claim that big AI developers have scraped the internet for their content without permission or compensation. As a result, AI companies have begun talking with copyright holders and licensing their content.
The New York Times investigated the biggest tech companies building generative AI systems and found that they "bent and broke" their own rules to train their systems. The paper claims that OpenAI, Google, and Meta violated corporate rules and waded into legal gray areas as they gathered data.
The investigation alleges that the companies used just about all of the respectable English language text on the internet, including Wikipedia articles, news articles, Reddit threads, and digital books. This includes copyrighted material.
The use of this data has caused lawmakers to begin proposing bills that would require AI companies to disclose information about their training sets.
In other AI news:
- James Bond, Henry Cavill, and Margot Robbie were featured in a bogus trailer for a made-up James Bond film starring Cavill as 007 and Robbie as the latest "formidable Bond girl."
- "Next Stop Paris," a short romance movie slated to be released by TCL, is described as "the first AI-powered love story."
- The first beauty pageant featuring AI-generated contestants competing for the title of "Miss AI" is in the works.
- OpenAI is the "most funded" AI company in the world, having raised $14 billion in funding rounds so far, according to CB Insights and data presented by Stocklytics.
- Google has announced that all of its AI teams will now report to DeepMind and Demis Hassabis, the company's AI chief.
- In a recent podcast, CNET's Patrick Holland asks about the future of smartphones and whether AI will play a role.